All Scholars

When O'Neill was two years old, his parents divorced and it was not until the age of 12 that he knew who his father was, nor even his real name. Shortly after meeting his father in 1922, he took his name and retained friendly relations with him throughout his schooldays. O'Neill was a brilliant student at Yale and his knowledge of classics inspired his father's play Mourning Becomes Electra, in which he tries to blend classical mythology with modern drama. By one account, he also convinced his father that he should not to delay publication of A Long Day's Journey into Night for fear the play might damage his son's career at Yale. Nevertheless relations deteriorated after the son received his Ph.D. and his father complained that he was "too erudite." His articles on metrics in particular are models of precision and statistical compilation, and all his publications are marked by a critical acumen and wide learning that promised a great career. Although he left Yale to join the war effort, he was turned down by every branch of the service, perhaps for physical reasons, perhaps because he had for a short time belonged to the Communist Party. He spent the remainder of the war working in a cable factory. After the war, his collaborator Whitney Oates, chair of the department at Princeton, arranged a lectureship for him that lasted only two terms before he was let go. He became interested in mass communications and education and worked as a television and radio commentator but was fired from this job as well following a disastrous interview with the actor Adolphe Menjou. He took more and more to drink as his life began to crumble, and after leaving a note beside an empty bottle of bourbon that read "Never let it be said of O'Neill that he failed to empty a bottle. Ave atque vale," slit his wrists and ankles in a tub, Seneca-style.